


Up on Cripple Creek

by Lucky107



Series: Only You (And You Alone) [6]
Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Companions, Female Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 15:58:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14751908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucky107/pseuds/Lucky107
Summary: Eli has no intention of letting Sunny return to her mission alone.





	Up on Cripple Creek

Wheaty is right about one thing: Eli has no intention of letting Sunny return to her mission alone after her capture.

But she bounces back from her time in the chair with surprising clarity.

Her colour returns within days of being back on her feet and her sleeping pattern slowly works itself out. The fire that burns within her sharp green eyes has been rekindled by that characteristic sense of duty. She’s just about ready to return to the surface for good when Eli springs the news on her.

“Sunny, you have a visitor.”

Sunny exits Wheaty’s room with a half-hearted promise to be right back, drawn towards the front of the bunker by a tentative curiosity. It dissipates the moment she sees Jess Black standing across the table from Eli.

“Jess Black,” Eli begins the introductions naively. “This is Sunny Regis—”

“We’ve met.”

Jess is blunt and to the point when she interrupts him, even though it’s Eli she’s speaking to, but she isn’t _rude_ about it. That’s what Sunny respects the most about her.

The world may have hardened her, but she made a choice not to let that make her cold. Rough around the edges, definitely, but she never turned her back on life - not even when it so frequently turned its back on her.

In that way they aren’t so different.

It would have been so easy for them to walk away from it all, to shed the weight of humanity’s burden and live out the rest of their days in solitude. _Independence_. They could have allowed the world to toil in its own refuse until the end times swallowed it whole—but instead, they wound up here.

 _Fucking ironic_ , Jess might call it.

Sunny believes it to be fate.

It’s been months since they parted ways at the Pit on a promise to never speak of what happened there again.

But actions speak far louder than words to a Whitetail.

“We _did_ meet,” Sunny confirms after a momentary lapse. “You were… shit, you were one of the prisoners we released from the Baron Lumber Mill, right?”

“Right,” Jess acknowledges. “Word is Eli needs a volunteer to assist you in taking on Jacob Seed, so I thought I’d try to repay the favour. Sounds to me like you’ve seen some serious shit since the lumber mill, though.”

“The Grandview Hotel,” Eli corrects, stern. “Sunny was already in the chair when we got to her and you know what Jacob does to ‘em. Gets right inside their head. She’s been doing just fine here, but once she’s out there, that’s Jacob’s territory. You’ll be playing _his_ game the minute you set foot outside of this bunker.”

Eli lectures to Jess as if Sunny’s not even in the room, figuratively passing over her leash, and Sunny lowers her head with an air of submissiveness.

 _That’s_ not the Sunny Regis that Jess knows.

For a woman of few words, there are so many Jess wants to say in that moment, but she swore an oath.

Sunny would put her life on the line for her fellow Whitetails—for complete strangers, for _humanity_. She wasn’t thinking about _herself_ when she agreed to aid with tracking down the Cook and Jess would never forget that. But Eli would never know, never fully appreciate what a capable soldier Sunny had become.

So he will never appreciate why, the moment they step out of this bunker and into the sunlight, Jess will hand Sunny back the reins to her life and grant her back every ounce of the independence, of the dignity, she once earned as a Whitetail.

Before the chair.

“All right, _dad_ ,” Jess offers in an attempt to alleviate some of the pressure as Sunny gathers her gear for a visit to Sarah Perkins’ mobile laboratory.

Jess would never dream of play-acting _master_ , not for all of the honour or glory in the world, but it left an especially bad taste in her mouth to be asked by someone so prominent and well-respected to babysit a fully capable and totally competent adult.

It’s doubly so when that adult is a _friend_.

And if there’s anyone in these mountains sporting Whitetail green that Jess can trust to have her back in a pinch, it’s Sunny Regis.


End file.
